Weekly Memo

Dec. 14, 2015

Dear members of the Hajim School community:

For Omar Soufan '17 of Biomedical Engineering and Ibrahim Mohammad '17 of Mechanical Engineering, there are immediate, compelling reasons to become engineers and try to make the world a better place. Omar, who is from Syria, is interested in designing prosthetics, partly because thousands of refugees have lost limbs in the civil war that has ravaged his homeland. Ibrahim came here to learn to build water purifiers and electrical generators for his refugee camp in Lebanon. You can read more about their efforts, and those of other University students with ties to Syria, to aid refugees from the conflict -- in Omar's case at great personal risk -- in this front page story by the Democrat and Chronicle. We wish them all the best in their endeavors.

Congratulations to:

Henry Kautz, the Robin and Tim Wentworth Director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science and Professor of Computer Science, who is Chair-Elect of the Section on Information, Computing and Communication for the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Varsity football players Matt Mender '16 of Biomedical Engineering, a defensive tackle, and Jeffrey Weinfeld '16 of Chemical Engineering, a punter, who were both elected to the 2015 CoSIDA Academic All-America Division III Football Team, Matt making the first team, and Jeffrey the second. You can read more about their scholastic and athletic accomplishments here.

Hajim School students pursuing master's degrees here next school year are eligible to apply for scholarships that cover tuition and fees -- and provide a $25,000 stipend -- from Iberdola USA Foundation. The scholarships are for students at six universities who are studying in such areas as renewable and sustainable energy, clean combustion technologies, energy efficiency and storage, smart grids, cyber security and data science, and information and communications technology. In recent years, we've had at least one student receiving an award each year. The deadline to apply is Feb. 26. Click here for more information.

The end of another semester is upon us. As always, keep me updated -- and I wish you all the best on those final exams!